Sex is real. Gender is in your head.
3.8K posts
@FloatOrSwim
Sex is real. Gender is in your head. Please leave it there.
In Cardiff at the #OneYearLater event. Women are discussing their needs for single sex spaces whilst a man in a dress is shouting 'have you ever seen a TERF with any style' through a loudhailer. The difference in the seriousness of the message is extremely stark.
Woman of the Day teacher and suffragist Pippa Strachey (1872-1968) of London, the organisational genius behind the very first major suffrage protest, the Mud March, in 1907. That was 119 years ago, yet today, women are gathering in Westminster, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Manchester, Belfast, Plymouth, and Houghton-le-Spring, because once again, the government is ignoring women’s voices and prioritising the feelings of men — a very small subset of men, but men nonetheless - over the rights of women. The Mud March featured a brass band, carriages and motor cars carrying women’s suffrage flags and banners, and 7,000 women wearing matching rosettes, with around forty women’s groups from all over the country taking part. It required much soothing and smoothing by Pippa of "all sensibilities and political disagreements” beforehand to reconcile women’s groups with differing points of view but it was a triumph of diplomacy. Only the Pankhursts’ WSPU declined to attend in an official capacity but many of its leading members were there anyway: Christabel Pankhurst, Annie Kenney, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence. Today, there will be women’s groups and banners from all over the UK listening to notable speakers drawn from women’s organisations. No “soothing and smoothing of all sensibilities and political disagreements” is needed. We are united and we want one simple thing: for @bphillipsonmp to stop dithering and lay the EHRC guidance before Parliament. Her decision not to do so — and it is a decision — is causing harm to women (and men) and especially to children, because government departments, councils, retailers, employers and schools think they are excused from following the law. 119 years ago, Pippa, who had no experience of organising anything like this, made it a full team effort. The Artists’ Suffrage League produced posters and postcards. The marchers’ rosettes were made by the Actresses’ Franchise League. The London Society for Women’s Suffrage placed ads everywhere to publicise the event and encourage women from all walks of life to attend. Everyone played a part. It was a stroke of genius. Rachel Strachey, close ally of Millicent Fawcett and Pippa’s sister-in-law, wrote: “In that year, the vast majority of women still felt that there was something very dreadful in walking in procession through the streets. To do it was to be something of a martyr, and many of the demonstrators felt that they were risking their employments and endangering their reputations, besides facing a dreadful ordeal of ridicule and public shame.” Does that sound at all familiar? Thousands of women set off down Rotten Row with the brass band leading, Millicent Fawcett at the front, followed large contingents of women from all over the country, marching under banners that proclaimed their various professions and trades. The only thing that couldn’t be planned for was the weather. On the day, it rained incessantly: “mud, mud, mud" everywhere, according to Millicent Fawcett, which is why it was known as the Mud March. Today, it will rain incessantly in Cardiff, which is where I’ll be with my @WomenOfWessex sisters. It won’t put us off, any more than the mud did 119 years ago. We women are made of stern stuff. Back then, The Observer warned that the women’s movement should “educate its own sex rather than seeking to confound men". That’s straight out of NHS Fife and NHS Darlington’s playbook, don’t you think? The pro-suffrage Morning Post (now The Telegraph) deplored the "scoffs and jeers of enfranchised males who had posted themselves along the line of the route, and appeared to regard the occasion as suitable for the display of crude and vulgar jests". The Graphic (later the Daily Sketch), also pro-suffrage, carried a photo of a man dramatically holding up a pair of scissors "suggesting that demonstrating women should have their tongues cut out". Today, we face derision and similar threats from masked men. No, I’m not going to repeat them. You all know exactly how much male fury is unleashed whenever women dare to speak up in defence of their lawful rights. “Both sides”, my foot. Four days after the Mud March, NUWSS leaders met with the Parliamentary Committee for Women's Suffrage to discuss plans for a private member’s Bill proposing that women should have the vote subject to the same property qualification that applied to men. Relatively few women would have qualified and the sponsor was hopeful. The Bill was talked out. It took another eleven years before women over 30 were accorded the right to vote, and 21 years before all women were enfranchised on the same terms as men. The Supreme Court’s clarification of the Equality Act 2010 is almost 365 days old, yet public servants are still hounded for recognising biological sex, NHS staff are still denied access to single-sex changing rooms, women are still denied lawful single-sex services and placed at risk. Lesbians still face exclusion because they do not accept men as lesbians. Women in prison are still locked up with men. All of this is unlawful, Ms Phillipson. All of it. You could put a stop to it tomorrow. You would have the law and the courts on your side, so what’s holding you back? Women are rising. #OneYearLater #SupremeCourtRuling
The Green Party of England and Wales Welsh manifesto. Hot on heels of Finnish study, an actual danger to children. "While HRT may need to be delayed for younger people due to Westminster rules, puberty blockers have been shown to be safe and effective as a treatment method."
